A large-scale cyberattack has targeted cooling equipment at hundreds of supermarkets in France, causing significant food losses and fires. Authorities are investigating the case, while there are suspicions that the incident may have spread to other European countries.
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On Monday, the Paris Prosecutor’s Office announced that the attack had affected internet-connected refrigerators at several of the country’s largest food retailers.
French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu asked France’s National Cybersecurity Agency (ANSSI) to investigate the incident. Due to suspicions that the impact extended beyond France’s borders, French authorities have begun cooperating with their European counterparts.
Felix Aime, a senior cyberthreat intelligence analyst at Sekoia Threat Detection and Research, said similar cases had been reported in Spain, Portugal, Poland, Germany and Belgium.
Major retail chains have suffered significant damage. To protect consumer health, the affected food products were destroyed.
Footage filmed in Paris shows supermarket employees dumping large quantities of frozen products into waste containers. Melted ice and ice cream spilling from damaged packages also ended up in the streets.
Foreign media report that the value of the losses could reach tens of millions of euros. In modern supermarkets, control panels typically operate the cooling equipment and set the temperature of refrigerators and freezers throughout the store.
Connecting these systems to the internet allows maintenance companies to carry out interventions and adjustments remotely.
A source close to the office of the French prime minister said ANSSI had discovered a vulnerability in software provided by Danish company Danfoss. The company confirmed that it had been notified of the incidents in France, which affected a limited number of cooling-management systems.
According to Danfoss, the affected devices were running older firmware versions—the software that controls electronic devices. The company said it had long advised customers to install the latest updates and replace outdated systems with modern solutions.
On August 9, Team82, the research team of cybersecurity company Claroty, published a report on vulnerabilities in the Danfoss AK-SM 800A controller. The report said Danfoss updates had addressed issues that could have allowed attackers to bypass authentication and execute code on compromised devices. Authorities are trying to determine how the attack was carried out and how extensive its impact was.
Problems also reported in the Netherlands and the US
Ahold Delhaize, the Dutch company that owns Albert Heijn, the largest supermarket chain in the Netherlands, announced that it was dealing with a security incident on its computer network.
As a precautionary measure, the company temporarily disabled several systems. In a notice to app users, it said grocery orders could not be delivered because of the cyberattack.
Physical stores remained open. Meanwhile, Dutch news agency ANP reported that delivery orders had increased at rival chains.
Ahold Delhaize said there was no reason to believe its incident was connected to the attacks on supermarkets in France.
Reports indicate that, at the end of August, similar problems also affected around a dozen US military grocery stores, where refrigerator failures caused product losses.
Authorities are continuing their investigations to determine whether the incidents reported in different countries stem from the same cause.
The case has renewed concerns about the security of digital infrastructure in the food industry. Internet-connected devices can become vulnerable points, with direct consequences for food safety, consumer supplies and companies’ finances.
